Remember Me
by Powered by 23 Kicks
Summary: All we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
1. Chapter 1

**Remember Me**

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 **Prologue**

 **. . . . .**

I forget how old I was when I began to dream about the boy.

One of my favorite pastimes was leafing through Grandma Swan's store catalogs, and pretending that I could choose just one item on each page I saw. Would it be the red pleather pants, or the black? I could only choose one per page, and I couldn't change my mind afterwards, so it was a challenge. I'd choose something in every section, even in Appliances (silver and white outer-space looking washer and dryer), even in Automotive (red leather seat covers), and even in Fitness & Sporting Goods (scary-looking Bowflex thing).

And then there _he_ was in Men's Clothing, and something in my chest flipped. Body slouched gracefully, head cocked, smirking up at me with these eyes that sent a zing through my body. His hands were tucked into his jeans pockets, and he wore a simple white t-shirt under a blue-plaid flannel shirt. I couldn't look away. It wasn't just that he was uncommonly pretty with his wide mouth, flushed cheeks, and rather startling copper hair, it was the look in his eyes – like someone had just told a joke, and it was taking everything in him to keep from busting out in laughter. I don't know what it was exactly about him. It was just a _photo_! Of some boy-model I didn't even know, and never would. But, I couldn't look away.

Carefully, I'd torn the page out and smoothed it flat. Later, I hid him in my diary. I might have even looked at him again before bed.

He appeared late one night as a new boy at my school. I remember the full body shock of trading looks with him the first time. His eyes were sea-green and surprisingly intense, and he hadn't been smiling at all. In my dream, I'd stumbled back and fallen to the floor. _It's the boy in the magazine_ , I'd thought, aware I was dreaming.

His hand was warm when helped me up, and he didn't let go. We'd both looked down at our hands, then up at each other. Then, he'd stepped close to me, closer than any other boy ever had.

"Finally," I think he'd whispered.

He sat beside me at lunch that first day and every day after, and he'd tell jokes. He razzed Mike and Tyler about our football team, he dared Emmett to a hot dog eating contest, and he told me I could run from him, but he'd catch me anyway. We held hands under the table. He didn't let go to do a fist bump with Emmett, not while eating a hamburger, not even to unscrew the cap on his bottle of lemonade.

As the years passed and I continued dreaming of him, my copper-haired boy grew more attentive. Out of all the girls he could have had at school, he chose me. Jessica tried the trip-and-fall-at-his-feet trick more than once. I saw Lauren corner him behind the bleachers in gym class. Tanya even hid in the backseat of his car. All three of them were beautiful, popular, and sought after at school, none of them the kind of girl a boy usually said no to. But mine did.

Every time I woke up and realized again he was only a dream, I went a little more crazy. In real life, he was never waiting to meet up with me in the common area, never tried sneak a kiss outside at the fountain, never left me breathless with just his smile.

 _No one at school ever asked where he was._

 _He existed only in my dreams._

 _Everything I felt was a lie._

I'd choke back tears, hating myself, trying to hide the pain. Or, lying it away if anyone asked, because how could I explain?

The older I got, the more frequent the dreams became, and the darker and more unhealthy they grew. My copper-haired boy model went from gently smiling to almost glowering. It scared me at first; that fiery look in his eyes licked along every nerve ending in my body until I was squirming with wanting something I couldn't even name. But I _wanted_ that look from him. I wanted that tummy-churning fear. It excited me, it made me feel alive like nothing else ever had.

We went from holding hands and innocent kisses to suggestive caresses, his thumb slow-circling the palm of my hand; my fingernails dragging along the inside of his wrist, the way I'd learned from him; when he pressed my hand against his chest, a heart-stopping move that then turned into something else as he cupped it and moved it lower. He liked sucking on my fingers, nibbling softly on the pad, his tongue caressing and curling around me until I could hardly breathe because of what he made me feel. Then he'd suddenly bite down _hard_ , and I'd slow-jerk in one long motion. I'd wake up gasping and sweating, twisted in my sheets, my body humming and alive, craving more.

And bitterly resenting reality, of knowing it was all only a dream. Maybe I was just horny, too young, too inexperienced, to understand what was happening. Surely every girl had dreams like this. It had to be normal.

 _I_ had to be normal.

He was a dream, I kept telling myself.

 _Just a dream._

It had to stop. _I_ had to stop.

I tried everything. NyQuil. Red Bull. Jogging. Meditation. Chocolate. Kissing Jake, Tyler, James. Letting Jake get to second base. Essential oils. Vodka.

He was inescapable. Or I couldn't forget him, or didn't want to. I no longer knew.

Like me, he grew and changed in my dreams. He stood at least a head taller than me now, and he had the strong body of a well-built man. His eyebrows thickened and darkened, his cheekbones and jaw sharpening. Unless he smiled, he projected a kind of brooding, almost angered expression. His eyes that had once been carefree now held secrets. There was something he wanted me to understand, something always at the edge of my mind when I woke, just out of reach.

The changes in his appearance and attitude happened little-by-little, as it would have if he were alive and we were maturing together. Gradually, imperceptibly. By the time I fully realized that something wasn't right about myself or the man in my dreams, it was too late.

By then, I didn't care. By then, I was living just so I could go to sleep.


	2. Retrograde

**Remember Me**

 **Chapter One**

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 _ **Retrograde**_

 **. . . . .**

I wake up crying.

To a silence heavy in my heart, which is racing for reasons my mind hides from me.

 _. . don't leave me . ._

 _. . . come with me . . ._

 _. . . . why are you here then . . . ._

The words filter through my mind, although I have no memory or context for them. All I know is that I've lost _him_ again, and panic is clogging my throat.

In my haste to get to my water bottle, I knock the lamp over on the bedside table. It falls with a clatter, and my hands shake as I unscrew the water bottle's lid. Hands shaking, I almost pour out half the contents across my face trying to get some down the hatch. By the time I stop coughing, my panicky fear has given away to anger and a runny nose.

"Why are you doing this?" I whisper brokenly into the room.

With a cry of rage, I throw the water bottle at the wall, but my aim isn't good enough, and the bottle isn't full enough, to smack against anything satisfactorily.

It's still early. My alarm isn't due to go off for another 40 minutes. I should just get up, but I don't.

I sit in the gradual brightening light of my room, wondering about the hidden mystery of my dreams, wondering about missing the copper-haired man. Wondering about how I can ache for someone I don't know.

Something is wrong with me. I'm not scared yet, at least I don't think so. I'm _frustrated_. Why is this happening?

When I sleep, I'm good. More than good.

But it just hurts _SO MUCH_ when I'm awake.

 **. . .**

Ms. Denali asks me to say after class.

My stomach plummets, and I suddenly feel like I'm going to be sick.

As she passes, Angela shoots me a worried glance. Ben just clenches his teeth and glares at me, and seeing that from him makes me feel more guilty than I already do. Nausea presses against my throat, so I concentrate on breathing.

 _Breathe, just breathe. It'll pass._

I watch my fingers caress the cover of my moleskin notebook through tears, hearing the sounds of my departing classmates as if everything is being played in surround sound. Mike is telling Jessica that he's going to wear purple runners to prom, and Emmett is joking about Jasper always pulling his pants all the way down just to pee. There's a scuffle, a chair scratching across the floor; Emmett's "Ow!" and the sound of giggling.

Oh, that's me. Giggling and crying and wishing . . .

I sniff and try to get myself under control as Ms. Denali closes the door firmly. I know why she's asked me to stay, and if she catches me crying, it's going to raise a flag.

"Bella," she says with a sigh as she sinks into the chair in front of me. It's all she says. The minutes stretch, but then she touches me.

My face is like stone when I meet her eyes.

"What's happened?"

 _It's my fault, all my fault, but Ben and Angela can still pull it off if they-_

I shrug. "Just stopped caring is all."

Bewildered puzzlement is written all over her face. It echoes how I feel, but to a lesser degree. As the days passed, it just . . . the _contest_. . . didn't matter as much. _Winning_ didn't seem to matter like it once had.

"You . . . stopped caring about the scholarship," she grinds out.

Every year, the _Reading is Fundamental Association_ held a contest, where a team of three or four students created an illustrated children's story of artistic, instructional, and social value. For the right project, they would award $25,000 each year, for four years, to no more than four participants.

I'd gone to Ms. Denali with the idea of a pair of siblings living in war-torn Ukraine, a young brother-and-sister fighting for food and their lives. Somehow, the siblings had managed to create a window box of flowers that had begun to wilt. But the two were unwilling to let them die, so they decided to fight for their plant's lives, too. Using the limited resources of their water and humidity, and their own wills to survive in an area that rarely let inhabitants beat the odds, they worked to devise ways to bring the flowers back to life. To keep them living.

I was the writer and the illustrator. Angela handled the math and science of it all, and Ben the technology. We were going to be unstoppable, Ms. Denali had told us more than once.

"Why? How? This doesn't make _sense_. You're the one who had the idea to begin with," she says, her words coming fast, then slow.

And I know. She feels like she's been smacked by a 2x4. Angela did, too. Ben wouldn't even look at me, unless it was to glare.

I pull my hand away from hers, then cross my arms. "I'm sorry," I say. "I know it's not an excuse, but I don't have any other explanation. I just . . . lost interest."

The truth was that I could no longer concentrate long enough to contribute to our entry. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't summon up the early fire I'd felt for two kids fighting for their plants' lives. I mean, come on. They should be fighting for their _own_ lives. It was just . . . a stupid idea.

"Jasper can take my place," I tell Ms. Denali. "He draws as well as I do. Better, even."

"This was _your_ idea," she grits.

"Maybe, but it's not just mine anymore," I say, and I can't look at her. Instead, I stare at the yellowish bust of Caesar perched on the edge of her desk. "Can I go now? I'm already late for swim meet."

In the silence that follows, I scoot my books into my arms and stand.

"Is something going on at home?"

My eyes flash to hers in surprise.

"What?"

She pushes up from the desk, keeping me from moving forward. "I just-I don't understand, Bella. How could you just _give up on this_? Because something like this _isn't_ something you give up on. You've worked so hard. And I don't want you to lose out on this opportunity. This is your future."

Her stance is that of a Momma Bear. She's ready to go to bat for me, even if she doesn't know where to swing it, or who to swing it at.

I hold her gaze, because I need her to understand that I'm not being traumatized or bullied or whatever at home. I look at her until her own eyes fill with tears.

"It's my decision, only mine," I whisper. "I just can't give this project the attention it deserves anymore, Ms. Denali. And it's not fair to Angela and Ben."

 _That's all._

She's still shaking her head as I edge toward the door.

"I won't be making any formal written change for another month," she says. "So you still have plenty of time to change your mind."

"Jasper's already said yes," I tell her. "I notified the contest admins last week."

" _Bella,"_ she gasps.

"I'm sorry," I mumble.

I yank the door open, and I'm running down the hall before I hardly know it.

 **. . .**

I swim with a fire in my belly today; I swim hard and fast, and make Coach Black happy.

It's a trade-off.

 **. . .**

When I was ten, I used to fall to asleep with the taste of minty-grape Juicy Juice on my tongue, because Mom said I couldn't have my goodnight drink until _after_ I'd brushed my teeth. She had to do this with me, because I hated naps, bedtime, and generally anything that meant I had to slow down at all. If I was going to do something I didn't like - especially if that something meant I'd be trapped behind a closed door, away from all of life's technicolor wonderfulness - well, there'd better a glass of grape juice waiting for me.

Sometimes I drank it sloppily, because it gave me a purple mustache and made Mom laugh. When she was in a happy mood, she'd cuddle with me under the covers. That's when she told me about the first time she really noticed my dad.

"He was called up to the front of the room to diagram the Edward Bulwer-Lytton sentence, _'It was a dark and stormy night,'_ " she said deeply, but she was laughing at the same time she spoke, so it didn't sound all that dark. Or stormy. "Your dad stood up from his desk, took a step, and then crashed to the floor like a sack of potatoes. It was loud, and I remember thinking that his fall just kept going and _going_. All of those long, dangly limbs of his."

The little girl in me couldn't imagine the larger-than-life image I had of my dad _falling_ because someone had tied his shoelaces together. Mom was just telling me another tall tale. She was good at that, because she was a librarian, and she told stories to kids two times a week. I had firsthand experience listening to her intractable _Cat in the Hat_ as he argued with a talking fish, her nervous White Rabbit in _Alice in Wonderland_ , and her sharp-edged Marilla in _Anne of Green Gables_.

"But he took that fall in stride," Mom said about Dad. Instead of untying the laces, my dad slid his shoes off, walked up to the chalkboard like it was nothing, and diagrammed the heck out of that sentence.

A week later, she'd asked him to the Sadie Hawkins dance, and that was _that_.

But now I'm 17, and Mom and I don't get along well enough anymore to have before-bed cuddles or walks down memory lane. In fact, the last story she spun for me wasn't fun at all. "If you don't let Jake or Tyler take you to the prom, I'm going to lose the bet with Sue. And if I lose the bet with Sue, I'm taking your car keys away."

I knew the threat was hollow; she'd never take the car keys away for such a reason. But I also knew that if I didn't go to prom, she'd be heartbroken. Mom had a romantic's soul, but she'd had to skip her own prom because she'd been pregnant with me. Just steps away from the side gymnasium entrance to _Heaven on Earth_ , her water broke.

So while the idea of me going made my left eye twitch, I knew she wasn't going to drop it. I would have to go in order to keep up the charade that I was a typical teenager overly concerned with appearance, and what others thought of me. Actually, Mom and Dad made that especially easy for me, because they were still so obviously in love with each other, and never bothered to hide it.

"Disgraceful," I once heard old Mrs. Stanley hiss.

Rosalie was less subtle. She stuck her hand in her mouth and made herself gag.

Alice liked to watch them with her chin propped up on her hands. Her mom was two-years-divorced, but dating her dad again. Kind of a case of _can't live with him, can't live without him_ , and Alice was always riding on the roller coaster of _will they_ or _won't they_.

Privately, I was glad my parents still felt so strongly about each other. It meant that I didn't have to spend time worrying about them. Happy people were less likely to notice the shadows.

Not that I lived in the shadows. If pressed, I'd say I lived in the hush before the dawn.

Just.

 _Before._

I woke.

It was bittersweet, that feeling; all of the emotion in my dreams exploding and filling me with an everything-ness that was impossible to put into words.

Most of the time, in the seconds before I woke, I felt like an angel had chosen _me_ to love.

And when I wasn't dreaming, it was rough going.

I made sure I stayed busy when I was awake; I was on the school's swimming team, a creative writing mentor, and I also had a 3.8 GPA. I liked studying, I liked learning. Those activities kept me busy at school or at home, and since I got good grades, I got away with what I needed to. Like lots of sleep, and no job. Boys, parties and dances barely registered, and because of this, Dad turned out to be my most unlikely cheerleader.

" _Her job right now is school, Renee. Not late nights stocking the shelves at a grocery store, or hanging out the McDonald's drive-thru window handing out fries and hamburgers."_

" _Well, how's she supposed to understand the value of earning a dollar then? Or to gain a sense of independence if she can't even buy gas for her car?"_

 _"Allowance. She cooks dinner six nights out of seven. Scrubs both bathrooms. Empties the trash._ "

" _Great. Maybe she should be a hotel concierge," Mom grouched._

" _She doesn't ask us for anything. No sassing, no boy trouble-"_

 _Here, Mom had huffed in annoyance, probably because it was one of the ways we could have connected . . ._

" _You know what a good kid she is, Renee. She's focused on her GPA. We got lucky with Bella."_

 _Mom's sigh, heavy and drawn out. "I just don't want her to miss out on anything."_

" _Like what? Falling asleep in 2nd period? Not being able to concentrate on 4th period's pop quiz?"_

 _Another huff from Mom, then a laugh. "She's us. She's our bullheaded go-getter."_

" _Bullheaded is right," Dad had grumbled. "Can't get that girl to hook a worm for nuthin'."_

" _Sheee, Charlie. Not when we can buy trout from the grocery store already descaled, cleaned, and seasoned."_

Maybe Dad forgot the time that I _had_ hooked a worm, and then immediately vomited onto the sand beside our shoes?

Anyway, I had a schedule. And I was lucky because it didn't involve hooking worms onto fish hooks, or an after-school job braving the hot oil of a fryer.

My after-school schedule meant swim practice until 3:45 on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Even then, I still did my two-hour requisite science and technology studies before I began dinner. Mom got home around 5:15 and usually helped, and when Dad pulled into the driveway twenty minutes later, we were setting the table.

Unless it was football season, in which case we bonded while eating on TV trays in the living room. Those were my favorite times, because Dad ate in fits and starts according to what was going on, and it was hilarious to watch him. If it was a close game, and if me and Mom kept the Budweisers coming, Dad would eat almost half a bag of raw snack carrots without realizing it.

"Thank God we have two bathrooms," Mom liked to say.

I'm in one of them now, brushing my teeth. I spit the paste out, rinse my mouth, then hang my toothbrush back in its holder, ready to do the same thing all again tomorrow. In the mirror, my face is flushed, my eyes bright.

It's my favorite time of the day.

Good nights already said downstairs, I close and lock my bedroom door. It's a soft _snick_ in the quiet.

I pull the piece of canvas across my closed bedroom door, heavy, sound-proof, and after a lot of cajoling and crying, finally parent-approved. After all, a light sleeper like me has to get a good night's rest.

I flick the switch on the machine that pours white noise into the space.

Then, I walk across the room to push the far window sash down, let the blind drawstrings loose, turn off the light on the bedside table.

It's dark when I feel my way back across my room until I reach the side of the bed. I slide down to sit on the floor, and stretch forward over my legs, grasping my ankles and relishing the pull and give of my muscles. I breathe slowly in and out, repeat, _repeat_ , until the twenty-minute timer on my phone pings.

By then, my mind is at ease, my muscles like Legos, all connected and moving toward a singular purpose.

I climb into bed, pull the covers high until they touch my chin, and inhale slowly until I imagine every last one of my lung sacs are round with oxygen.

 _. . Hold my breath and arch my neck back and exxxxxhale . . . until my body grows heavy little by little, from the neck down . ._

Ahhh _yes_ , this is when the feeling of euphoria kicks in. Just for a nano-second, but it's enough that I do the same breathing exercise again.

 _again._

and _again,_ like a junkie who can't ever go high enough. I burrow deeper under the covers, they're heavy and smell like lavender, and I hunch my shoul-

 _-ders as the sparks of light comes to soak my skin through to the bone, and it's so bright that it blinds and deafens me, but I know what's happening-_

. . . . and why, and that those colors and soft edges are flowers unfurling and blooming as I shift under the cov . . . .

 _ers. I'm coming, or going, and then he somehow stops it all, and I'm gasping and falling against him. His arms are tight, hard and warm against me, and I'm blinking up at his face._

His beautiful eyes are wide, worried, and dark under thick, furrowed brows. Like he can't decide between being concerned or angry. It registers in my mind in a second, but then he says something.

"I'm sorry about yesterday," he says slowly.

 _He's sorry?_

I can't stop staring at his mouth. Why won't he kiss me?

He shakes me gently, and I think I see something like despair in his eyes before he pulls me close, arms tight around me. His fingers are digging into my hip and arm, and I think he's shaking. Is he . . . is he _crying?_

I don't understand.

His lips are pressed against my temple, then my ear.

"I don't mean to scare you," he murmurs. "But I just _miss_ you so much."

My heart, my body aches the same, but before I can tell him, he's speaking again.

"But you're not ready."

 **. . . . .**

 **The writing contest idea is based on the** _ **Reading is Fundamental**_ **winners who came up with the** _ **Water Wonders**_ **series. If you want to know more, just Google** _ **Water Wonders**_ **.**

 **Hugs to Rachel Winterhorses for the pre-read and _atta-girl_.**


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